REPENTANCE AND
CONVERSION
by: GEORGE WHITEFIELD — 1714-1770
"Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that
your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the
presence of the Lord" — ACTS
WHAT A
PITY it is that modern preachers attend no more to the method those took who
were first inspired by the Holy Ghost, in preaching Jesus Christ! The success
they were honored with, gave a sanction to their manner of preaching, and the
divine authority of their discourses, and energy of their elocution, one would
think, should have more weight with those that are called to dispense the
gospel, than all modern schemes whatever. If this was the case, ministers would
then learn first to sow, and then to reap; they would endeavour
to plough up the fallow ground, and thereby prepare the people for God's
raining down blessings upon them.
Thus
Peter preached when under a divine influence, as I mentioned last Wednesday
night: he charged the audience home, though many of them were learned and high
and great, with having been the murderers of the Son of God. No doubt but the
charge entered deep into their conscience, and that faithful monitor beginning
to give them a proper sense of themselves, the apostle lets them know that
great as their sin was, it was not unpardonable; that though they had been
concerned in the horrid crime of murdering the Lord of Life, notwithstanding
they had thereby incurred the penalty of eternal death, yet there was a mercy
for them, the way to which he points out in the text; "Repent ye
therefore," says he, "and be converted," and adds, "that
your sins may be blotted out." Though they are but few words, they are
weighty; a short sentence this, but sweet: may God make it a blessed sweetness to
every one of your hearts!
But
must we preach conversion to a professing people? Some of you perhaps are ready
to say go to America; go among the savages and preach repentance and conversion
there; or, if you must be a field preacher, go to the highways and hedges; go
to the colliers; go ramble up and down, as you used to do, preach conversion to
the drunkards: would to God my commission might be renewed, that I might have
strength and spirit to take the advice!
Possibly
others will say, do not preach it to us; pray who are you? I answer, one sent
to call you to repentance; and although I might, yet I will not come so close
to you at present, as to inquire in my turn, who are you; yet permit me to
pray, that while I am preaching God's Spirit may find you out; and not only let
you know who you are, but what you are; and then you will not be easy with
yourselves, nor angry with a minister of Jesus Christ for preaching conversion
to your souls.
Repentance
and conversion are nearly the same. The expression in the text is complex, and
seems to include both what goes before and follows "turning to God":
and if the Lord is pleased to honor me so far tonight to be useful to sinners,
as well as saints, I will endeavour to shew you,
First,
what it is not to be converted; secondly, what it is to be truly converted:
thirdly, offer some motives why you should repent and be converted: and
fourthly, answer some objections that have been made against persons repenting
and being converted, and yet at the same time, if you come and examine them,
they know not so much as speculatively what real conversion is; the general
notion many have of it is, a person's being a convert from the Church of Rome
to the Church of England.
There
is a particular office in the large prayer book, to be used when any one
publicly renounces popery in the great congregation. When this is done, that
prayer read, and the person said Amen to the collects upon the occasion, every
body wishes him joy, and thanks God he is converted; whereas, if this is all,
he is- as much unconverted to God as ever; he has in words renounced popery,
but never took leave of the sins of his heart. Well, after this he looks into
the church, and does not like that white thing called a surplice; he looks, and
thinks there are some rags of the whore of Babylon left still: now, says he, I
will be converted; how? I will turn Dissenter: so after he is converted from
the Church of Rome to the Church of England, he goes to the dissenting church:
maybe, curiosity may bring him to the Methodists, those monstrous troublesome
creatures, and, perhaps, he may then be converted a third time, like their
preaching, like their singing; O dear, I must have a Tabernacle-ticket, I must
have a Psalm-book, I will come as often as there is preaching, or at least as
often as I can; and there he sits down, and becomes an outside converted
Methodist, as demure as possible: this is going a prodigious way, and yet all
this is conversion from one party only to another. If the minister gives a rub
or two he will take miff perhaps, and be converted to some other persuasion,
and all the while Jesus Christ is left unthought of;
but this is conversion only from party to party, not real, and that which will
bring a soul to heaven.
Possibly,
a person may go further, and be converted from one set of principles to
another; he may, for instance, be born an Arminian,
which all men naturally are; and one reason why I think Calvinism right, is,
because proud nature will not stoop to be saved by grace. You that are brought
up in an orthodox belief, under an orthodox ministry, cannot easily make an
allowance for thousands that have nothing ringing in their ears but Arminianism; you have sucked in orthodoxy with your
mother's milk, and that makes so many sour and severe professors. I knew a
rigid man that would beat Christianity into his wife; and so many beat people
with their Bibles, that they are likely, by their bitter proceeding, to hinder
them from attending to the means God has designed for conversion. What is this
but being converted from one set of principles to another; and I may be very
zealous for them, without being transformed by them into the image of God.
But
some go further, they think they are converted because they are reformed: they
say, "a reformed rake makes a good husband,"
but I think a renewed rake will make a better. Reformation is not renovation: I
may have the outside of the platter washed; I may be turned from prophaneness to a regard for morality; and because I do not
swear, nor go to the play as I used to do; have left off cards, and perhaps put
on a plain dress; and so believe, or rather fancy, that I am converted; yet the
old man remains unmortified, and the heart is unrenewed still. Comparing myself with what I once was, and
looking on my companions with disdain, I may there stick faster in self, and
get into a worse and more dangerous state than I was before.
If any
of you think me too severe, remember you are the person I mean; for you think
me so only because I touch your case. The drunkards and Sabbath-breakers,
cursers and swearers, say to us, you can never preach
but you preach against us: as a good man once replied to a person, who
complained against us ministers for this preaching; I will put you to a way,
said he, that we shall never preach against you; how is that? why, leave off cursing and swearing, &c. Then your
consciences will be clear, and the minister will look over your heads: happy
they that are convinced of it!
You
have not heard me, I hope, speak a word against reformation; you have not heard
me speak a word against being converted from the Church of Rome; against being
converted to the Church of England; or against being good: no; all these are
right in their place; but an these conversions you may have, and yet never be
truly converted at all. What is conversion then? I will not keep you longer in
suspense, my brethren: man must be a new creature, and converted from his own
righteousness to the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ; conviction will
always precede spiritual conversion: and therefore the Protestant divines make
this distinction, you may be convinced and not converted, but you cannot be
converted without being convinced; and if we are truly converted we shall not
only be turned and converted from sinful self, but we shall be converted from
righteous self; that is the devil of devils: for righteous self can run and
hide itself in its own doings, which is the reason self-righteous people are so
angry with gospel preachers; there are no such enemies to the gospel as these:
"there were Jews who trusted in themselves that they were righteous,"
that set all in an uproar, and raised the mob on the apostles.
Our
Lord denounced dreadful woes against the self-righteous Pharisees; so ministers
must cut and hack them, and not spare; but say wo, wo, wo to all those that will not
submit to the righteousness of Jesus Christ! I could almost say this is the
last stroke the Lord Jesus gave Paul. I mean in turning him to real
Christianity; for having given him a blow as a persecutor and injurious, he
then brought him out of himself by revealing his person and office as a Saviour. "I am Jesus." Hence says the apostle,
"I count all things but loss-that I may win Christ, and be found in him;
not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through
the faith of Christ; the righteousness which is of God by faith." You hear
him not only speak of himself as injurious, as a blasphemer, but also as a
Pharisee; and in vain we may talk of being converted till we are brought out of
ourselves; to come as poor lost undone sinners, to the Lord Jesus Christ; to be
washed in his blood; to be clothed in his glorious imputed righteousness: the
consequence of this imputation, or application of a Mediator's righteousness to
the soul, will be a conversion from sin to holiness. I am almost tempted to
say, it is perverseness in people to preach against the doctrine of imputed
righteousness, because they love holiness, and charge the Calvinists with being
enemies to it: how can they be charged with being enemies to Sanctification,
who so strenuously insists on its being the genuine fruit, and unquestionable
proof of the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, and application of it
by the Spirit of grace? They that are truly converted to Jesus, and are
justified by faith in the Son of God, will take care to evidence their
conversion, not only by the having grace implanted in their hearts, but by that
grace diffusing itself through every faculty of the soul, and making an
universal change in the whole man.
I am
preaching from a Bible that saith, "He that is
in Christ is a new creature, old things", not "will" be, but
"are passed away, all things", not only "will", but
"are become new." As a child when born has all the several parts of a
man, it will have no more limbs than it has now, if it lives to fourscore years
and ten; so when a person is converted to God, there are all the features of
the new creature and growth, till he becomes a young man and a father in
Christ; till he becomes ripe in grace, and God translates him to glory. Any
thing short of this is but the shadow instead of the substance; and however
persons may charge us with being enthusiasts, yet we need not be moved either
to anger or sorrow, since Paul says, "I travel in birth till Christ be
formed in your hearts."
The
author of this conversion is the Holy Ghost: it is not their own free will; it
is not moral suasion; nothing short of the influence of the Spirit of the
living God can effect this change in our hearts; therefore we are said to
"be born again, born of God, of the Spirit, not of water only, but of the
Holy Ghost; that which is born of the flesh, is flesh, but that which is born
of the Spirit is Spirit": and though there is and will be a contest
between these two opposites, flesh and spirit, yet if we are truly converted,
the spirit will get the ascendency; and though for a
while nature and grace may struggle in the womb of a converted soul, like Jacob
and Esau, yet the elder shall serve the younger, Jacob shall supplant and turn
out Esau, or at least keep him under: God grant we may all thus prove that we
are converted. This conversion, however it begins at home, will soon walk
abroad; as the Virgin Mary was soon found out to be with child, so it will be
soon found out whether Christ is formed in the heart. There will be new
principles, new ways, new company, new works; there will be a thorough change
in the heart and life; this is conversion: at first it begins with terror and
legal sorrow, afterwards it leads to joyfulness; first we work for spiritual
life, afterwards from it: first we are in bondage, afterwards we receive the
Spirit of adoption to long and thirst for God, because he has been pleased to
let us know that he will take us to heaven.
Conversion
means a being turned from hell to heaven, from the world to God. We have not so
much as asked a person to sell his all, to leave his shop, to lay any thing at
our feet: when we talk of being converted from the world, we mean being
converted from the love of it: the heart once touched with the magnet of divine
love, ever after turns to the pole. I think it is said of a sun-flower, though
I question whether it will always hold true, that it turns to the sun; I am
sure it is true of the Redeemer's flower that grow in his garden, they not only
look to the sun, but they find fresh life, warmth, and transforming influence
from him who is their all in all. Here Christianity appears in its glory; here
the work done is worthy the Son of God. To be converted only to a party, is
that worth Christ's coming from heaven to earth for; that we might have a set
of principles without having them affect the heart? For to be baptized when
young, or as some to come out of the water at age, and turn out as bad as ever,
is a plain proof of the necessity of being baptized by the Holy Ghost.
What
say you to this change, my dear souls? Is it not God-like, is it not divine, is
it not heaven brought down to the soul; have you felt it, have you experienced
it? I begin to catechize you already, for I could spend a whole sermon in
speaking of conversion: but I am afraid those that sit under the gospel have
more need of heart than fight: would to God we had as much warmth in our
hearts, as light in our understandings! But if there be any of you here that
are not yet converted, upon what grounds do you hope for conversion? Give me
leave to say, that you ought to repent and be converted, for till then you
never can, never will, never shall find true rest for your souls. What wrong notions
have people got of conversion! They think it is a wretched thing, and dread
being converted; not knowing what it is, they think it is a frightful thing. I
knew one sometime ago, that came to some Methodists; dear, says the person, you
are cheerful, I could be glad if I was a Methodist too, if there was a majority
of them in the land: but God help us to go to heaven with the minority, if the
majority will not follow. But my dear hearers, there is not a single soul of
you all that are satisfied in your stations: is not the language of your hearts
when apprentices, we think we shall do very well when journeymen; when
journeymen, that we should do very well when masters: when single, that we
shall do well when married; and to be sure you think you shall do well when you
keep a carriage.
I have
heard of one who began low; he first wanted a house, then, says he, I want two,
then four, then six; and when he had them, he said, I think I want nothing
else; yes, says his friend, you win soon want another thing, that is, a hearse
and six to carry you to your grave; and that made him tremble. O if you are
Christians, if the Lord loves you, he will put a thorn in your flesh. I have
often thought of what a good man says in his Diary, the Lord put a thorn in my
flesh. Among politicians, when they find a man ambitious, they say, kick him
up, that he may fall and break his neck: so it is in every condition; there is
not one of you fifty years old, but have had many changes: have not you found
thorns even on the rose that smelt so sweet, and thorns perhaps that pricked
you so closely, that you have forgot the scent of the rose by it? And what is
all this for, but to teach you that happiness is only to be found in the Lord.
If a soul is truly converted, there will be a battle,
and an awful chasm that will never be filled up but with the love of God; and
therefore when we say, Repent and be converted, it is no more than saying,
repent and be happy. Indeed we shall never be completely happy till we get to
heaven. O that every man could see the good of every thing of a sublunary
nature drop off like leaves in autumn: God grant this may be known by every one
of you.
If it is asked, why you should repent and be converted? I
answer, because else you can never be happy hereafter. What do you think heaven
is? Why, says the covetous man, I think it is a place full of
gold; so you think to steal some of the gold do you? Others would like
heaven very well if there was a good gaming-table in heaven; if there was
card-playing in heaven. I have heard of a lady that was so fond of gaming, that
tho' she had the pangs of death upon her, yet when in
the midst of her fits, or just coming out of one, instead of asking after
Jesus, where he was to be found, she asked, what is trumps?
So the gamester will ask, where is the backgammon
table? Where is the box? He will want to shake his ungodly hand in heaven; he
will say, let us have a gaming-table in heaven, where, as he will find, he has
lost the game; that God has damned him without an interest in Christ. "Can
two walk together unless they are agreed?" If you die and do not love God
here, if you cannot love praying to God here, and cannot watch one hour,
suppose you were to be struck by death and be taken to heaven, there is no such
language and amusement there, what would you do? Why, say you, these Methodists
are presumptuous people; they can tell us whether we are to go to heaven or no.
Good Mr. Rogers, a Welsh Boanerges, preaching in the
mountains, said, Christ is heaven, if I worship God here, and do all to God,
and for God, without any hopes of reward upon the earth. My dear brethren, the
devils would never be troubled with such a wretch in hell, he would set all
hell in an uproar; if a true Methodist was to go to hell, the devil would say,
turn that Methodist out, he is come to torment us: therefore you must be
converted if you will go to heaven. Dr. Scott says, if a natural man was to be
put into heaven it would be such a hell to him, that he would be glad to go to
hell for shelter: angels they hate, God they hate; and as Adam was afraid to
meet with God when he first fell from him, so his sons hate God and flee away.
I
mention one thing more, which is, that you must be converted, or be damned, and
that is plain English, but not plainer than my Master made use of, "He
that believeth not, shall be damned." I did not speak that word strong
enough that says, "He that believeth not shall be damned"; that is
the language of our Lord; and it is said of one of the primitive preachers, that used to speak the word damned so that it
struck all his auditory. We are afraid of speaking the word damned for fear of
offending such and such a one; at the same time they despise the minister for
not being honest to his master. Some have said, and stand to it, that hell is
only a temporary punishment: Who told them so? A temporary punishment! Nothing but a guilty conscience. O go
to Bedlam! Do ask a child of God what he feels when his Lord is absent? Ask the
spouse what she feels when she cries, "Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?" Ask a child of God when he is using this
plaintive language, "Why standest thou afar off,
O Lord?" and he will tell you, it is hell to my soul to be but one moment
without the presence of my beloved.
And if
his absence for a quarter of an hour can scarce be borne by a child of God,
what must that soul undergo that is commanded to depart from him forever? and yet these very words were said to those that thought
they bid fair for heaven; to these Jesus says, "I know ye not." God
grant you may never know the meaning of these words by awful experience! Now,
what say you? I could make a hundred heads more, but I choose to make as few as
possible, that you may remember them. I say, conversion makes you happy hereafter,
and without it you are damned forever.
"Are
these things so?" why then, my dear hearers, do you think there can be any
objection raised against conversion, do you think there can be any argument
raised against turning to God directly? Is there any person here that will give
himself time to consider a moment that will not say, though you speak in a
rough, incoherent manner, yet there is some truth in what you say; I believe
men ought to be converted, but the common saying is, I don't care to be converted
yet; we think it is time enough to be converted. Is not this acting like the
cardinal, when told he was elected pope, and desired to come that night and
have the honor of pope conferred on him; because it was pretty late said, it is
not a work of darkness, I will put it off till the morning; before which they
chose another pope, and he lost his triple crown. You may think to put it off
till the morning, though before the morning you may be damned. Pray why will
you not be converted now? If you was in prison, and a
person would take you out, you would choose to be let out tonight before
morning, that you might sleep the better; why will you not do that for your
soul you would for your body?
Well,
I would be converted, but I shall be laughed at: suppose you was to have it
promised, you should have a ten thousand pound lottery ticket, but you must be
laughed at all your life time; there is none but would say, give me ten
thousand pounds, and call me Methodist as long as I live: so if you loved God
and your souls, you would say, give me God and call me what you will. You are
afraid of being laughed at and nicknamed, and skulk into this and that place,
because it does not stink so much of Methodism as this. Put your cockades in
your hats, and let the world see that you are not ashamed of God's badge: let
the devil and his agents preach to you; they can proclaim their sin like
But
say you, all in good time, I do not choose to be converted yet, why, what age
are you now? I will come down to a pretty moderate age; suppose you are
fourteen: and do not you think it time to be converted? And yet there are a
great many here, I dare say, twenty years old, and not converted. Some are of
opinion, that most people that are converted, are so
before thirty. There was a young man buried last night at
Let me
look round, and what do you suppose I was thinking? Why, that it is a mercy we
have not been in hell a thousand times. How many are
there in hell that used to say, Lord convert me, but not now? One of the good
old Puritans says, hell is paved with good intentions.
Now can you blame me, can you blame the ministers of Christ if this is the
case, can you blame us for calling after you, for spending and being spent for
your souls? It is easy for you to come to hear the gospel, but you do not know
what nights and days we have; what pangs we have in our hearts, and "how
we travel in birth till Jesus Christ be formed in your souls," Men,
brethren, and fathers, hearken, God help you, save, save, "save yourselves
from an untoward generation."
Tonight
somebody sits up with the prisoners; if they find any of them asleep or no sign
of their being awake, they knock and call, and the keepers cry, awake! and I have heard that the present ordinary sits up with them
all the night before their execution: therefore, don't be angry with me if I
knock at your doors, and cry, poor sinners, awake! awake!
and God help thee to take care thou dost not sleep in
an unconverted state tonight. The court is just sitting, the executioner stands
ready, and before tomorrow, long before tomorrow, Jesus may say of some of you,
"Bind him hand and foot." The prisoners tomorrow will have their
hands tied behind them, their thumb strings must be put on, and their fetters
knocked off; they must be tied fast to the cart, the cap put over their faces,
and the dreadful signal given: if you were their relations would not you weep?
Don't be angry then with a poor minister for weeping over them that will not
weep for themselves.
If you
laugh at me, I know Jesus smiles. I cannot force a cry when I will; the Lord
Jesus Christ be praised, "I am free from the
blood of you all": if you are damned for want of conversion, remember you
are not damned for want of warning. Thousands that have not the gospel preached
to them, may say, Lord, we never heard what conversion is; but you are
gospel-proof; and if there is any deeper place in hell than other, God will
order a gospel despising Methodist to be put there. You will have dreadful
torments; to whom so much is given, much will be
required. How dreadful to have minister after minister, preacher after
preacher, say, "Lord God, I preached, but they would not hear." Think
of this, professors, and God make you possessors!
You
that do possess a little, and are really converted, God convert you and me
every hour in the day; for there is not a believer in the world, but has got something
in him that he should be converted from; the pulling down of the old house, and
building up the new one, will be a work till death. Do not think I am speaking
to the unconverted only, but to you that are converted. God convert you from lying a bed in the morning; God convert you from your
conformity to the world; God convert you from lukewarmness;
God convert us from ten thousand things which our own hearts must say we want
to be converted from; then you will have the Spirit of the living God. Do not
get into a cursed Antinomian way of thinking, and say, I thank God, I have the
root of the matter in me: I thank God, that I was converted twenty or thirty
years ago; and once in Christ always in Christ; and though I can go to a public
house and play at cards, or the like yet, I bless God, I am converted. Whether
you were converted formerly or not, you are perverted now; and may God convert
you all to close Christianity with God!
You
that are old professors, don't draw young ones back
from God, by saying, ah! You will come down from the mount by and by; you will
not always be so hot; and instead of encouraging poor souls, you will pull them
down, because you have left your first love: would you have Jesus Christ catch
you napping, with your lamps untrimmed?
O ye
servants of the most high God, if any of you are here
tonight, though I am the chief of sinners, and the least of all saints, suffer
the word of exhortation. I am sure I preach feelingly now; God knows I seldom
sleep after three in the morning; I pray every morning, Lord, convert me, and
make me more a new creature today. I know I want to be converted from a
thousand things, and from ten thousand more: Lord God, confirm me; Lord God,
revive his work.
You
young people, I charge you to consider; God help you to repent and be
converted, who woos and invites you. You middle aged people, O that you would
repent and be converted. You old grey-headed people, Lord make you repent and
be converted, that you may thereby prove that your sins are blotted out. O I
could preach till I preached myself dead; I could be glad to preach myself
dead, if God would convert you! O God bless his work
on you, that you may blossom and bring forth fruits unto God. Amen and Amen.